


Big Brother's Intuition

by WonderfulWonderWorld



Series: The Dick Grayson Collection [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Also Damian is a little shit, And they love him too, Big Brother Dick, Bruce Wayne is Tired Dad TM, Dick Grayson is the best bro, Everyone Loves Dick Grayson, Family, Gen, He loves them too much, He tries so hard for his family, minor hurt/comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 22:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12156228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WonderfulWonderWorld/pseuds/WonderfulWonderWorld
Summary: Dick has an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what his family needed. AKA, Big Brother Dick and how he keeps the rest of their family intact with his intuition.





	Big Brother's Intuition

It was a trait of Dick Grayson that Bruce tended to overlook. Back when Dick had been Robin and it’d just been him and Alfred in the Batcave, there hadn’t really been anyone for Dick to show affection towards, other than himself, and Dick had known that Bruce wasn’t big on professing his love towards his ward every few minutes. He hadn’t even known about this strange, uncanny bit of knowledge that lead to him suspecting that his eldest being a Metahuman (despite him having been tested repeatedly for a metagene).

It was during the first week of Dick moving back into Gotham, a couple months after his ‘death’, during which time Bruce had been stuck in the past. Bruce had finally managed to strike some sort of balance with his youngest and biological son, and the patrols had begun to go smoothly. They’d been steadily decreasing the number of dead victims (a fact Bruce that was immeasurably proud of) on each patrol and he’d found that once he got used to the slightly outlandish way Damian acted, the kid was really just as soft ad kind as the rest of them. In his own unique way, which involved death threats and possible disembowelment. But hey, they all had their own respective quirks, right?

  
So, yes, the week had been going great. Which should have been a warning sign all together - he was the goddamn  _ Batman _ , things didn’t go smoothly for them. He just hadn’t been expecting it to go  _ this way _ .

Bruce stared at his study, his face blank. “ _ What  _ is going on?” He demanded sharply.

Dick, who had been in the process of dismantling a series of wires connected to what looked like a bucket of… paint?, glanced up sheepishly at his father figure. “Oh, hey, Bruce,” the acrobat greeted, smiling and looking very much like a deer caught in headlights. 

His office was covered in a variety of shades, ranging from a hideously bright neon orange to an equally as hideous shade of  _ puce _ . A bright viridian slash of paint crossed from one corner of the wall to the other, intermingling with gray and pink, forming an ugly brown in the centre. What looked like a crudely drawn Batman symbol was decorated with little  _ R _ s in the corner. For Robin, he assumed.

The paint was already dry, but clearly it had been painted in a rush. There were thin lines of paint falling onto the carpet. Bruce severely hoped Alfred had yet to see this, because the old butler would have an aneurysm at the stains it’d left in the precious carpet. 

His eldest was still tinkering with the bucket, carefully removing wire by wire, until the bucket was finally devoid of its original contents and safely disposed of.

“Okay, that’s done,” Dick mumbled to himself, and set the empty bucket on his desk. “Now we don’t have to worry.”   
  
Bruce scowled at Dick and pointed to his walls. “Care to explain?”   
  
“Ah, yeah,” Dick cleared his throat uncomfortably. “That was, uh, Tim, with Jason’s help.”   
  
“ _ Tim  _ did this?” The older man gazed in horror at the revolting colours on the walls. Jesus Christ, it was Tim that did it? Tim, who was  _ supposed  _ to be the sensible, calm one? What would have driven him into vandalizing his office? 

Bruce mentally took a week off of patrol on Red Robin’s schedule and grounding. Yes. That would suffice. Being away from the Titans (and his Kryptonian boyfriend, Connor) would surely restore Tim’s sanity.

“Pretty sure, yup.” The eldest spread his hands and shrugged. “It was while you were at work and I was taking Damian to school. Tim recently had some kind of breakdown with Connor and Jason convinced him to vent. The walls were a victim of said venting.”   
  
“And you know this… how?” Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I don’t suppose they told you they did it?”   
  
“Nah, I had a feeling something like this would have happened,” Dick grinned. He picked up a spare paintbrush that had been lying on the floor, its head snapped off. Bruce eyed it apprehensively. It was always the quiet ones that snapped the hardest. “Tim’s been off all week. When I got home, I headed straight to the study. Good thing I noticed the bucket, or you would’ve been splattered with paint by now.”

Bruce did his best to suppress his sigh and glanced wearily at the walls. “They’re cleaning this up before Alfred gets home,” he declared.

Grayson quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, they will,” he agreed. Then Dick frowned slightly. “Got to go, Bruce, Dami’s doing something.”   
  
Before Bruce could reply, Dick had already slipped out the door.

Shaking his head, he gingerly slipped around the paintbrushes on the floor and headed to his desk.

 

-:-

 

Damian was in the kitchen. Without Alfred. 

Right away, alarm bells started going off. Bruce had been banned from the kitchen after an event they all agreed not to talk about, and Alfred had made it clear that he was not allowed within ten feet of the kitchen after his own respective disaster… So Damian being in the kitchen was a big no.

“I hope those cookies you’re making aren’t filled with laxatives,” Dick called out as he entered the kitchen. The effect of his words were immediate. Damian stiffened and spun around, looking slightly guilty and very nervous. 

“Grayson,” Damian growled curtly, still covering whatever he’d been making. Dick caught a glimpse of sedatives, though, and raised an eyebrow.

“Little D, you know you’re not allowed in the kitchen without Alfie,” Dick said in exasperation, leaning over his youngest brother and swiping the laxatives. 

Damian immediately let out a cry of outrage. “Grayson, unhand those this moment! You are not allowed to touch that!”   
  
Dick snorted. “Dami, you’re not allowed to use sedatives on Tim, or Jason, especially if you put them in your cookies.” 

Damian scowled but otherwise didn’t protest. “How did you know?” he demanded grudgingly.

The acrobat winked.

 

-:-

 

Jason had not been expecting Dick’s visit to his forty eighth safehouse. 

In the first place, he’d relocated safe houses to  _ avoid  _ Dick after he’d found all the others. Clearly,  that hadn’t worked, and he was pissed that Golden Boy had managed to track him down even now. He made a mental note to install some serious security measures.

All he’d wanted to do when he’d gotten home was to collapse on the bed, injuries be damned. That night had been tough, and Jason had gotten more than a few scrapes. He’d been shot, and the wound needed to be treated, but his eyesight was blurring and he doubted he’d be able to clean the wound by himself. And there was no way he was going to the manor.

Jason staggered into his apartment, which smelt like cheap beer and smoke, and flicked the light switch. The couch seemed like a good place to crash at the moment, and he was seeing double, making it harder to walk. His shoulder burned and the pain made his vision go white. He held back a hiss as he dropped onto the sofa -

Only to jump back up with a cry of surprise.

“Hey, Lil Wing!” Dick Grayson beamed at him from his position on the couch. The smile quickly became a frown as Nightwing took in the bleeding from Jason’s shoulder.

“Oh fuck no,” Jason growled, hauling his brother to his feet, glaring murderously. “You are not allowed to barge in on my safehouse nonchalantly. You are getting the hell out of here before I put a few rounds in your body.”   
  
Dick narrowed his eyes at the rogue bird and swiped his hand away. “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m not letting you bleed all over the couch, Jason!”   
  
The anti-hero gritted his teeth in response. He was tired, about to pass out, and he didn’t have time to deal with his older ‘brother’. “Get out,” he snarled lowly, reaching for his gun.

Dick held firm. “Jaybird, stop.” The acrobat eyed the gun in his hands. “You’re not going to shoot me.”   


Jason scowled. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Dick didn’t speak but moved to the wound on his shoulder to apply pressure. The sudden thrust made him hiss in pain and his vision flickered. His knees buckled as the pain shot through his body, Dick catching him before he fell altogether.

“You’re not okay,” Dick murmured softly. “Let me take care of you, Jay. Please. Don’t push me away now.”   
  
It was a combination of pain, exhaustion, and something else… an emotion Jason preferred not to identify… that drove him to complying instead of arguing any longer. He was tired. Dick would help.

“Okay.” 

Relief broke out on the acrobat’s face.

 

-:-

 

Tim was about to pass out on the floor. 

He was seated in front of the Bat Cave’s monitors, and he’d been investigating this particular case since the previous week. He couldn’t even recall the last time he’d slept in a bed for more than an hour or two. He’d inhaled a generous proportion of coffee, and right now he was running solely on the caffeine in his veins. Which still didn’t minimize his exhaustion. 

_ Focus, Tim _ . He straightened in his seat and took another look at the case report he was given for the victim’s death. It’d been reported as a suicide by the police; the subject had taken a pill. If that had been all, then it wouldn’t have caught Tim’s, and by extension, Bruce’s, attention; but what had made him reread the report was the fact that the particular pill the subject had been taking was known to be sold from Black Mask’s gang in Gotham; the same drug that Batman had confiscated merely days earlier for studying the effects of. 

  
So, yes, it had definitely been occupying most of his conscious thoughts for days, but Tim had hit a roadblock in his path of reasoning. 

He took another generous sip of his coffee, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Tim set the mug down and tried reading the same sentence he’d been focusing on for three minutes - something along the lines of the pill’s damage to the man’s body.

His eyelids were beginning to droop, lower and lower, but he tried to force them open. They refused to listen, and Tim found himself sagging sideways on his desk, eyes closed. 

The door to the Cave opened, which Tim, his thoughts drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness, found to be surprising. It was, if his last estimation had been correct, roughly four in the morning, a time where the Cave was always deserted save for himself. Everyone would have gone to bed.

Vaguely, Tim recognized the footsteps to be his eldest brother’s. Dick, feet padding noiselessly on the ground, and then warm hands were pulling the chair back. Arms, large and secure, lifted him out of his position in front of the monitors, and Tim nestled himself amongst their warmth. 

“Oh,  _ Timmy _ …” His brother murmured, a little sad, but mostly fondly. 

He breathed in and out, exhaustion making his thoughts blurrier and blurrier. The warmth radiating from his brother’s chest was comfortable. For the first time in days, he allowed himself to relax in Dick’s arms.

He slept soundly that night, and if he woke up in the morning in a pair of pajamas and in between his blankets, well.

 

-:-

 

They never talked about it. 

Everyone knew that it was Dick who took care of them. It was Dick who tucked them in at night, saved their files and wrote little post-it notes on the walls, complete with smiley faces. None of the family members ever mentioned it, but they all knew it was him.

But they didn’t talk about it, and let it continue. They let Dick coddle them and fuss over them, let him be the one to welcome them home with hot chocolate in one hand and bandages in the other. 

They never thanked him outright, but slowly, slowly, they started to return his favors. 

Tim began visiting his brother’s apartment in Bludhaven more often to tidy up the (atrocious) apartment and drop of groceries. Damian was less guarded and even gave Dick a card for Mother’s Day (Jason laughed. A lot). Jason began spending more time at Wayne Manor and less callous on patrols.

Dick smiled as he looked over the photo album that he’d been making the past few months. It now featured not just candids of his brothers, but family photos. 

He gently traced his finger over the outline of his favourite. When they took that photo, they’d meant for it to be a more professional one, but Damian had sneezed last minute, causing Jason to burst into laughter, which prompted Tim to giggle. 

The picture had ended up with Jason doubled over, mirth clear on his face, Tim giggling into his palm, Cass smiling softly, Alfred looking exasperated, Damian face mid-sneeze, Steph with her hand on Cass’ shoulder, smirking into the camera. Even Bruce had cracked a slight smile. Barbara and Dick stood off to the sides of the family photo, Dick beaming at the camera while holding Babs’ hand.

They looked happy.

Dick smiled and slid the photo album under the bed, where he kept other treasured possessions. 

He headed down for dinner with the whole family.


End file.
